“We are convinced it would be very useful to have a specific human rights sanction instrument, not targeted at a region, but at any person or organizations involved in human rights violations— wherever in the world.”

Blok pointed to human traffickers or commanders of insurgencies involved in abuses as examples “where you wouldn’t want to target a country, there might not even be a country involved, you want to target the individuals,” and he admitted that one advantage of the approach of targeting individuals could be “avoiding getting involved in the geopolitics.”

It is now up to High Representative Federica Mogherini to formally look into the idea of an EU human rights sanctioning mechanism and come up with a detailed plan.

Accountability closer to home

But the Dutch leadership is not only committed to holding people to account in distant locations.

Later this week, EU leaders will for the first time formally discuss the next EU budget, and the Netherlands will be one of the countries, along with Sweden and Finland, set to fight for EU money to be linked to respect for the rule of law.

“The rule of law really is the cornerstone of EU cooperation,” Blok said.

“It’s logical that if there are doubts about the rule of law in a member country that those worries or problems should be solved as a pre-condition for receiving [money], especially cohesion funds,” the minister added.

The Dutch government has been highly vocal about its worries regarding the state of democracy in some EU member states.

“I regret seeing the rule of law being under threat, freedom of the media being under threat” in Central Europe, Blok said.

Striving for stability

When it comes to new concerns about Iran and Russia, the Dutch minister said he cannot exclude new sanctions over the two countries’ recent activities.

Nevertheless, when asked about the impact of these worries on the Iran deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Blok said that the agreement “was, and in my opinion still is, a treaty that has benefits for both Europe and Iran, and that we still strive to maintain.”

Issues like Iran’s development of ballistic missiles and support for terrorist organizations are “all very wrong, but they should be addressed separately from the nuclear deal,” the minister said.

Similarly, as ministers today review developments in Ukraine, Blok said that “at this moment in time [the] most important is to decrease tensions between Russia and Ukraine” and that sanctions “wouldn’t be the top of my agenda.”

“If developments would go in the wrong way, I would certainly not exclude” sanctions, the minister said, adding that Russia’s actions in the Azov Sea are “unacceptable.”